


Runner Up

by haruka



Category: Death Note
Genre: Death Note - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-16
Updated: 2007-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haruka/pseuds/haruka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does Mello qualify to be L's successor?</p><p>This was the result of a fifteen-minute word prompt challenge.  The prompt is stated at the end of the ficlet.</p><p>Note:  My first time writing for this fandom.  Set before manga #7.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Runner Up

Runner Up (Death Note)

By Haruka (haruka@ymail.com)

\--

It was never a word that was used to describe kids from this orphanage. On the contrary, they were the exceptional, the gifted. At this age, people would call them precocious; in the future, they’d be known as super-geniuses.

Mello wondered why, with all this going for him, he just felt mediocre.

A lot of the other kids would envy his position. He was one of the top students of his class, a worthy detective-in-the-making. Someone who could be L’s successor. Any of the others would want to be him.

Except for one, and therein lay the problem. Near always beat Mello out of the top spot, no matter what he did. As far as Mello was concerned, there was no pride in being number two. If he wasn’t on top, he was a failure.

Near shared many of L’s eccentricities. Some of them thought it was an act, a way of getting into L’s unique mindset in preparation for the time when he took over. Mello knew better. Near was genuine, and if he happened to share some weirdness in common with L, it was just because they were already of that similar mindset all along. There was no act to it. Their mutual quirks helped them focus, and they didn’t hurt anybody with them.

Mello was embarrassed to remember how he tried to emulate both of them to see if there really was some secret to it. Walking and squatting in a chair like a Neanderthal didn’t do a thing except give him a backache. Building a city out of six-sided dice or a tower out of sugar cubes was boring. Drinking a stack of creamers made him sick to his stomach.

He didn’t want to think that maybe he wasn’t bizarre enough for the number one spot, but he also didn’t want to believe he just couldn’t cut it.

Biting into his eighth chocolate bar of the day, Mello wondered if he would even have a chance to be chosen by L to fill his non-existent shoes. He and Near were both brilliant, and even if Near did ultimately surpass him in the results, it wouldn’t be by much. Would L be willing to consider the number two candidate as someone a little different from himself? Or was he really looking for a clone like Near?

Mello wasn’t going to settle for being a mediocre genius. If it took the rest of his life, he would prove to everyone that he deserved to follow in L’s footsteps and maybe even do him one better.

“Mello?”

He snapped out of his thoughts to look at Near’s curious expression.

“What are you thinking?”

Mello smirked. “If you don’t already know, maybe you’re not so smart, after all.”

\--

(Word prompt – Mediocre)

(2007)

Death Note belongs to Tsugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata

This fic is not to be re-posted.


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